Treffer: Strategy Before Syntax: A New Approach to Programming Instruction for Science Undergraduates.

In most undergraduate science courses, programming teaching follows a “syntax-first” approach; students are first taught the basics of a programming language, and only later is programming incorporated into relevant scientific applications. While this seems a natural approach, it is not without risks: science students may not see the relevance of learning programming until late in a course and disengage as a result. This risk is more acute for students who initially see themselves as unable to learn to code; this self-perception is disproportionately prevalent in female students. We have investigated a novel “strategy-first” approach, beginning by exposing students to pre-written code which can be applied to problems they have seen in other parts of their undergraduate course, and then breaking down the code into sections for them to modify, teaching the relevant syntax along the way. This ensures students make connections between programming and scientific concepts and produce an output relevant to their scientific education from their first introduction to coding. We illustrate “strategy-first” programming instruction through two case studies, demonstrating how instructors can implement this approach. We show that these case studies produced effective learning outcomes, with strong improvements in students’ understanding of both programming and chemistry. We also saw a statistically significant change in students’ attitudes towards programming, becoming more confident and less apprehensive; this change is more pronounced in female students. Finally, we show that students identified a clear connection between their programming instruction and their broader scientific education, a key advantage of the “strategy-first” approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]